Paper-based fee consent forms may be finally consigned to the history books after HUB24 announced a digital interface that could remove costs associated with the unpopular regulatory requirement.
The platform provider has moved to end one of the advice profession’s compliance pain points, utilising AI-assisted technology to overhaul what has been a laborious manual process.
Announcing its half-year results to the ASX on Tuesday morning, the company revealed that during 1H25 it had improved its advice fee consent capability to allow advisers to choose between digital and traditional consent options.
HUB24 chief executive Andrew Alcock tells Professional Planner the platform had been agnostic when it came to consent forms since day one of the regime, but this new function added further capability.
“We now don’t actually take any forms because we’ve built a whole digital interface that creates the form for you…pre-populates it and then uses AI to interpret it,” Alcock says.
A client can either log in via a portal to approve the fee consent, or they can be sent a link by email where they can click a link and put in a onetime passcode, or they can do a pre-populated PDF, or a paper form.
AI checks the client signature so it can be processed on the same day, rather than waiting for manual human review.
The functionality was recognised in platform researcher SuitabilityHub’s 2025 Platform Market Wrap report released last week as the “most impactful new enhancement” due to the new feature’s design in addressing the key costs for advisers in servicing ongoing clients.
“The challenge they’re tackling is a very crucial one in advice businesses and they’ve delivered an elegant solution,” SuitabilityHub managing director Recep Peker says.
The report found the change helps practices better prepare for periods with high volumes of activity and streamlines the management of fee consents across multiple clients at once.
“Advisers have a solution now where they can apply the arrangements en masse on a bulk basis with sufficient flexibility to individualise to the end client,” Peker says.
The requirement for advisers to gain ongoing consent for fee deductions was introduced after a recommendation from the Hayne royal commission and came into effect on 1 July 2021.
Less than a year into the new regime, the Financial Advice Association of Australia (then the Financial Planning Association) said advisers had made numerous complaints to the association about the impact of the regulation.
The Quality of Advice Review identified it as being the greatest burden on advisers, behind producing Statements of Advice, and noted the provisions required advisers to give clients a fee disclosure statement and to obtain agreement to renew an ongoing fee arrangement, along with consent to deduct advice fees.
QAR recommended streamlining this into one prescribed consent form, which was included in Tranche 1 of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation.
However, the final DBFO bill failed to prescribe a form into law, instead giving ministerial power to mandate one – a power yet to be utilised by the incumbent Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones.
The Financial Advice Association said late last year the industry was still working with Treasury on the mandated form, despite the DBFO bill having passed last July.
As well as the core update to the platform, HUB24 on Tuesday reported total funds under administration had grown to $120.9 billion as at 31 December 2024, with platform FUA increasing to $98.9 billion and PARS (the Portfolio Administration & Reporting Services acquired from Ord Minnett) increasing to $22.0 billion.
HUB24’s platform FUA target has been upgraded to a range of $123 billion to $135 billion for FY26, up from $115 billion to $123 billion.
The number of advisers using the platform increased 14 per cent, or 361 advisers, to 4886 during 1H25, and 84 new distribution agreements were signed.
Group underlying net profit after tax (NPAT), which excludes what the company deems as one-off costs, increased 40 per cent to $42.6 million, compared to 1H24. Statutory NPAT, which covers all expenses, increased 54 per cent to $33.2 million.
